I wish to introduce to you ideas that are so radical in today's health and wellness culture that they stand alone in their readiness for the future. These concepts are so revolutionary they shake the very foundation of chiropractic practice. The objectives I will share with you are the conceptual underpinnings of the practice of Network Spinal Analysis (NSA). These ideas can help shift practice from an allopathic model of specific cure into the arena that appears to be exactly what parents want for their children, and practitioners want for their practice.

The practice of medicine, under the practice acts of various disciplines is based upon the: 

a) identification of a pathophysiologic process or cause
b) Discrimination of that specific pathophysiology or causes from others
c) Institution of a treatment or care program to eliminate, reduce, or modify the negative processes induced by or contributed to by this pathophysiology or event.
d) Outcomes that demonstrate that the pathophysiology has been arrested or minimized, and the patient's health moving towards being restored. (Returning the patient to the previous or prior state- before the pathologic situation or event began).

Each profession has a characteristic pathophysiology, which it addresses. For the chiropractic profession, it is the mechanopathology of the vertebral subluxation. Effective chiropractic care is delivered to correct the subluxation, or minimize its detrimental effects on the individual - as this article will represent, the infant or child.

This author recognizes that in the allopathic world of correction, natural is preferred over more radical pharma-ceutical or surgical, and correction of subluxation to restore health is perhaps the most noble and effective strategy towards this objective.

However, the practitioner in this model at best needs to impress upon the parent the detrimental effects of subluxation and give the family another condition to be concerned about. At best, the child and parents learn the spine should be checked for subluxation before other causes of ill health and the adjustment can restore their health. Chiropractic adjustments become the natural allopathic approach to assisting the individual to adapt better in a hostile world.

In reality, there is no evidence to support the subluxation is a detrimental factor to one's health. Instead, there is ample evidence that force applications to the spine can have a significant impact on health and wellness. Instead of trying to correct a single cause or condition and to defend the need to continue to correct it, we can instead focus our attention on the positive benefits achieved.

I suggest that the vertebral subluxation is not the cause of ill health. Instead, it is an adaptive response to a comprised central nervous system's ability to perceive or experience the internal or external world. Instead of arguing over which technique is the best to restore subluxations and maintain health, we can focus our professional attention on establishing new sensory and motor strategies in children and adults which allow for greater self assessment and regulatory capacities. We can, through application of low force at specific spinal regions, help develop a state of spinal and neural integrity which is inconsistent with anything other than a temporary subluxation -  which is self-limiting and self-correcting.

Instead of restoring a child to a pre-subluxated state, we can strive help that child to perceive the environment with less stress, express emotions more effectively, become more aware of his spine, able to verbalize a body sense, awareness or emotion, make healthier internally guided choices, and meet the world with greater love. We can establish new spinal strategies, especially when the infant is still hardwiring the motor system at the spine. These new strategies allow for greater self-observation and regulation of spinal tension patterns and subluxation. They allow for the entrainment of the respiration with spinal motion and rhythm. They allow for the child to re-establish spinal and neural integrity through naturally occurring and developing motion, breath, and rhythms.

We can assist the child to organize himself internally and in relation to the world. As Network Spinal Analysis Care progresses over a series of levels, new emerging properties and strategies for the spine, nervous system, adapting to the world and living life develop. These are strategies that do not appear without Network care.

Network care is not attempting to identify the cause of ill health and correct it. It does not seek to correct or restore. Instead, it seeks to establish lifelong strategies of adapting universal forces and assembling innate forces for a greater expression of life and self-organization. This is not philosophical hype. It is real. Spinal and neural outcomes demonstrate these new abilities.

Network Spinal Analysis is an analysis and force application method employing a tonal approach. This approach elicits sensory and motor responses that assist in self-regulation of tension and energy states within the neural, osseous, and connective tissue matrix of the body. These responses appear to play a substantial role in the correction of vertebral subluxation while producing new spinal and neural strategies, which do not appear to develop with any form of subluxation adjustment alone. I propose that the subluxation and altered postural states are emotional responses of the brain acting in a state of defense. In defense physiology the body expresses spinal facilitation and multiple spinal cord tensions (fight or flight). In this state, there may be a reduced capacity to make constructive choices for one's body, emotions, and life.

NSA incorporates low force contacts, applied at specific Spinal Gateways that assist in the development of new strategies for achieving wellness, as well as an improved quality of living and healing. The Spinal Gateways may be considered to be an access point for the nervous system to auto-assess its awareness of spatial and temporal self-identity, and to its adaptive strategies. Spinal Gateways are located on or adjacent to the spinal segments having physical vertebral-dural attachments. All forces are applied in relationship to one of five spinal cord tension patterns, referred to as Phases.

The NSA adjustment, referred to as an Entrainment, is associated with the brain/body shifting to a non-defense physiology. Energy that was formerly bound in adaptive structural changes appears to be liberated for constructive purposes. This energy can then be used for neurological self-assessment necessary for regulation of spinal and neural integrity and reorganization. It is a wonderful gift to any child to establish such strategies early in life, without the need to lock the spinal structures, inhibit breathing, emotion, and life force in order to negotiate life's challenges.

Since 1995, NSA has been advanced through a series of Levels of Care. These are designed to coincide with a specific set of desired clinical outcomes. As well, the patient's (or parent's) assessment of their functional status, somatic awareness, and quality of life are considered as outcomes of Care. Thus, each Level of Care relates to a specific spinal and neural strategy that impacts on self-organization . Outcomes for each Level of Care are measured by a patient's (or parent's perception of her child's) assessment of wellness and quality of life.

Wellness Outcomes for Children
Lastly, let's examine the child's personal assessment, or the parent's opinion of the child's status in the following categories:
1. Physical State
2. Mental/Emotional State
3. Stress Evaluation
4. Life Enjoyment
5. Overall Quality of Life

Network Spinal Analysis has been the subject of academic study, research and publication. Although the retrospective and longitudinal studies did not include children in the population, anecdotal reports are consistent with the changes seen in adults. Evidence thus far suggests an unprecedented effect on wellness and quality of life, adaptability to stress, enhanced life enjoyment, and constructive lifestyle changes. To the extent that constructive lifestyle change impacts upon self reported wellness (stopping smoking and/or drinking, beginning exercises, yoga, meditation, nutritional support), Network care showed a doubling of the perceived wellness of lifestyle change. It also almost tripled the making of constructive lifestyle choices. This is extremely important to developing children and young adults to have a nervous system that can support such a positive way of meeting one's self and being in the world.

There are two models of health: biomedical and social science. The biomedical model refers to physical symptom status and laboratory tests. The social science model refers to the individual's functional status - the ability to utilize the uniqueness of one's environment and one's experience. It also includes the changes to one's perception, the ability to make healthier choices, and improvement in one's overall quality of life. 

Health by definition refers to optimal function - physically, mentally and socially, not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. The social science indicators must be considered to fully assess health.

Since chiropractic is a non-medical discipline, it is all the more vital that our spinal/neural/clinical assessments, as well as our patients' own self-assessments of health and wellness not be largely based upon medical indicators. 

In the course of Network care and also various applications of chiropractic, it is common for parents to remark that their child's disposition has improved. He learns better in school, she is more at peace, he reacts to stress more effectively, or sleeps better, and that in general he and she are more able to function without restriction. These are all indicators of health and wellness. At times, a particular entrance symptom may not reduce or eliminate, but the child's health will improve in a variety of other ways.

Remember that improved health does not always equate with a particular symptom's improvement. Often individual symptoms may intensify during the healing process, while other indicators of health and wellness improve.

The presenting complaint may be among the last of changes in the health picture. The practitioner must be certain of his or her focus and intent in monitoring the patient's progress. A parent may notice their child is watery eyed, flushed, or warm to the touch. However, the child's behavior may not appear any different than usual. In another instance, the child may be less feverish yet his behavior may be considerably affected. Is the fever, in itself, a measure of impaired health?

Or has the overall picture of the child, including his interaction with his environment, reactions to stress, mood, and sense of humor been viewed? Rather than questioning an adaptation of the body's internal wisdom (such as fever), ask instead about the how patient feels (or appears to feel) about how he feels. In questioning, a parent simply shifting the wording from "Tell me about Johnny's symptoms" to "Tell me about Johnny" will yield a far greater spectrum of information about your patient. The biomedical approach deals with the conditions only. The social science indicators refer to the person in whom the condition is present. As chiropractors, it is the person, not the condition we seek to help

 A paper titled A Retrospective Assessment of Network Care Using a Survey of Self Rated Health, Wellness and Quality of Life¹ presented the largest epidemiological study of a chiropractic population to date. It represents the largest study of chiropractic patients for such a wide range of health and wellness indicators. It established the initial validation of a new instrument for patients' self-evaluation for the categories of indicators mentioned above. Patients reported significant, positive changes in all the mentioned domains of health, as well as an enhanced quality of life. The improvements reported suggest that this particular application of chiropractic is associated with significant benefits in all categories. These benefits were evident from as early as 1-3 months and appear to continue, with no ceiling evident through the outer limit of the study (36 + months).

This study of 2,818 patients was conducted through the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, College of Medicine, Department of Sociology University of California, Irvine. It not only documented the health benefits of this form of care, but established a new basis for evaluation of the health and wellness benefits of non-medical disciplines.

Since the overall health and wellness benefits continued throughout the duration of care in the population reported in this study, it would be unfortunate to identify the goal of care as the reduction of a particular symptom, and miss the greater implications of long term care to the child's health.

With accountability to our objectives, and alignment of our procedures and communications, we can use safe, effective, gentle spinal care to position ourselves as leaders among the non-medical approaches to health and well being, helping our most precious asset, our children.

NSA care can, through its unique assessments and low force applications assist the young people in developing new strategies for experiencing the world, having greater physical, emotional and mental well being, deal more effectively with stressful or adverse and unexpected events, enjoy life more, and make healthier choices for themselves, and ultimately the communities they live in and the world.

Help us change the world. One spine at a time.

For online information: www.donaldepstein.com or www.innateintelligence.com 

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Longmont, Colorado 80501
(303) 678-8086

References
1) Blanks R., Schuster T., Dobson M., A Retrospective Assessment of Network Care Using a Survey of Self-Rated Health, Wellness and Quality of Life. Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research 1977